Clatworthy Camp, Clatworthy, Somerset

Clatworthy Camp hillfort is a roughly triangular enclosure with rounded apex at the W end, occupying the end of a long ridge which falls steeply on the N and W sides. Main defence is a bank of earth and stones with a ditch below, except on the S where the defence is a sharp ditch. The original entrance is on the SW and there is another at the SE corner where the bank has been altered by agricultural operations. Univallate hillfort with the main entrance on the SE (not SW as above).

It is inturned but mutilated by agricultural work. Another gap to the W may also be original. Earthworks are much damaged by badgers on the E and by agriculture on the S. Ditch is steep sided and cut into the solid rock and there is a marked quarry scoop to the rear of the bank on the W and N sides. Examination of the body of the rampart in a badger scrape revealed a stratum of iron panning 1.5m below the crest. Above this the bank material was compact shale.

Simple entrance gap at the W apex and another in the centre of the E side – this may be recent as it is not mentioned in published accounts, although it appears to predate a hedge bank on the outer lip of the ditch. N, W and SW sides have a rampart 10 yards wide, 6ft high (from the inside) and 18ft high from the base of the ditch. The ditch is 4ft deep and 10ft wide. Much is thickly overgrown. “Settlement” printed on OS 1:10,000 map.